Fall Planting

Amy Yarger, Senior Director of Horticulture 

At Butterfly Pavilion, outdoor gardening tasks slow down in the autumn. It’s the perfect season to let the garden quietly wind down for the cold season, ensuring that leaf litter, perennial stems, and shrubs provide shelter for overwintering invertebrates. Most planting projects are best done in spring and early fall, when temperatures are temperate and there is a chance of natural moisture. However, there are a couple of types of planting that do happen in our habitat gardens later in the season.  

Even when the weather gets chilly, planting best practices are still important. 

1. Bulbs – Our horticulture team at Butterfly Pavilion prefers to wait until a week or two after the first frost to plant our spring-blooming bulbs. Weather in this region can be unpredictable, and it’s better to ensure that night-time temperatures are cooler so that the tulips, daffodils, and other bulbs get the cold period they need. In November, the ground is not frozen yet, so we can dig more easily as well. 
2. Wildflower plantings – Many of the native wildflowers that pollinators like best drop their seeds in autumn. Some of these species, such as milkweed (Asclepias spp.) require a cold period to germinate. When Butterfly Pavilion’s horticulture team is establishing a wildflower meadow or pollinator pocket, we often watch the forecast in October or November for periods of light snow. Right before the snow, we will lightly rake the ground to promote good seed-soil contact, scatter the seeds, and then let the falling snow provide natural cover and moisture for the new seeds. These seeds will nestle in the ground until bursting out with the warmth of spring.  
3. Hand Watering – We make sure our new bulbs and seeds, as well as any perennials we’ve planted in early fall, get hand-watered when the temperatures are above 60 degrees F.  
4. Sheltering Plants – Adding mulch can also help to shelter new plantings from the extreme swings in temperatures we can see from autumn to early spring. Rabbits and other plant-eaters are especially hungry in mid to late fall, since fresh plants are harder to come by, so plant fencing or cages keep hungry critters from devouring vulnerable plants. 

So don’t worry if you missed your planting window this spring; you still have time to plant more pollinator habitat!